But Not a Drop to Drink
by MoreThanFrenchFries
Summary: Water, water, everwhere...  After Avatar Kuruk flooded the world, the history of the four nations was forever altered.  Now, two young pirates from the Southern Water Tribe discover a mysterious frozen vessel...  Victorian!Pirate!AU, eventual ships.
1. The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything

The following fanfiction is the result of two fangirls coming to the conclusion that AtLA needed more pirates. Neither fangirl owns anything except these nifty computers on which they type.

**Water Water Everywhere**

**_But not a drop to drink._**

Sokka's heavy boots make decidedly not subtle thumping sounds as he sprints across the fire nation galleon's metal corridors, sword in hand. He turns back to make sure Katara is still following him, and she is, with her artfully tattered skirts fluttering around her thighs; her arms full of ancient waterbending scrolls.

He looked forward, stopping short as he noticed the Fire Nation soldiers in front of him. Sokka shifted into a battle stance, just like Piandao had taught him. He smirked in satisfaction as he heard the familiar sound of Katara's whip unfurling with a sharp crack.

As the soldiers advanced, rifles at the ready, he let out a fierce battle cry as he rushed forward to meet them. He heard Katara calling his name, "Sokka! Sokka move! You-move, will you? Wake up!"

And he did. Promptly. On the wooden deck. In immense pain. Katara had flipped him out of his hammock.

"What was that for?" Sokka demanded.

"You were drooling on me." She flicked his spit back in his face with a fluid motion.

"Well excuse me, princess." Sokka sat up and crossed his arms, glaring incredulously at his younger sister, who had since busied herself with her waterbending katas.

"Please try to be quiet, Sokka, I'm trying to concentrate."

"Yeah, well I was trying to sleep! But you just couldn't let that happen, could you, you little-" The ship lurched violently. Sokka had grabbed Katara's arm during the course of their argument, causing the waterbender to lose her grip on her power. The ship was mainly steered by Katara's waterbending, so causing her to lose her focus could be a very bad thing indeed.

Sokka, of course, was aware of this, but, being the ship's First Mate, he thought himself above such rules as "don't bother the navigator when she's bending". The fact that said navigator was his sister didn't help matters.

Katara regained her footing effortlessly as her brother fell to the floor for the second time that morning. It was now her turn to glare at him. "What the hell did you think you were doing, you idiot! You could have gotten us all killed!"

Her brother stumbled to his feet, returning her glare with equal ferocity. "Oh, please. You're not nearly powerful enough to cause a shipwreck, unintentionally or not."

By now, the combination of the lurching ship and the loud tones of the siblings' argument had woken the rest of the ship. The grumblings of the annoyed elderly overshadowed sounds of mothers consoling their distraught children. Through all of this, Sokka and Katara continued to bicker like children, their argument eventually regressing to the classic debate of "I know you are, but what am I?" This, naturally, attracted the attention of the ship's captain. The water tribesmen heard Bato before they saw him. The heavy thudding of his boots along the wooden staircase was unmistakable, and as the sound of his footsteps grew closer, the noise of the hold grew dimmer until it was completely silent. The siblings stood side by side at attention, holding back guilty smirks.

"What the hell is going on here?" Bato barked. He put up a hand to stop them before either one could get a syllable out. "Get on deck now, both of you."

_The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything_

The sun was high in the sky by the time Sokka, Katara, and the rest of the rigging crew managed to get the ship back on course. That morning's incident had caused the ship to wander, and to say Bato had not been happy was an understatement. Katara sighed as she leaned over the ship's railing and stared out at the vast ocean. After Avatar Kuruk had flooded the world to save his lover, the Water Tribe had had no real home to go back to: their frozen homelands now melted back into the sea. They had fled to their ships, and, in desperate need for food and supplies, had turned to piracy. Oh, there were various Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation crews floating amongst the waves, but the pirates of the Water Tribe held the true power in the black markets and hidden harbors where the world's pirates congregated. After all, with their entire race turning to the trade, it was only expected that they hold a monopoly.

Katara had been born on the very ship she now navigated. She had never known the feel of solid earth beneath her boots. The ocean was her place of birth, and she was certain it would be her final resting place. But she had no complaints. Katara was a waterbender, after all. The sea was her life, and she never wanted to leave it. She loved everything about it, from the salty air to the rocking movement of the ship beneath her feet. Well, there was the fact that this was the non-combatant ship; the ship for the injured and the old, the women and the children. If there was one thing Katara hated about life at sea, it was the fact that she was stuck on _The_ _Serenity_, instead of a proper pirate vessel like the_ Dark Tide_, or her father's ship, the _Southern Chief_.

After all, Katara was no damsel in distress. She was the only bender left in the Southern Water Tribe, her stealth skills were exceptional, she could steal a man's coin purse almost effortlessly, and she was pretty damn good with a whip. Her father knew this, as evidenced by the fact that he made her an officer, but he still refused to give her and her brother a placement on a real pirate vessel. As the cool winds filled the sail and whipped around her form, Katara drew her dark blue officer's coat around her. The coat and the position were both meaningless in her eyes, empty gifts and empty promises from a father who wanted his daughter to stay witth the women and stay out of his way.

"Katara!"

She spun gracefully on her heel, searching for the source of the call, only to find herself face to face with her grandmother. She smiled. "Hello Gran-Gran."

Her grandmother stood her ground, hands placed firmly on her hips, a smile on her face and an ever-present warmth in her eyes. "Don't you 'Gran-Gran' me young lady! Who do you think you are, sitting here sulking when there's work to be done?" That was her Gran-Gran alright. Ever practical and always looking out for her Tribe, Kana was a believer in the philosophy that there was always some work that needed doing. "Now, go on, lunch may be over, but there's dishes to wash. Get your mind off your troubles, eh?"

Katara had never been happier to wash dishes in her life.

_The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything_

Sokka paced back and forth dramatically in front of the (hopefully) intimidated rigging crew. Not a single one of them was over sixteen or female. They looked uncomfortable and out-of place in their oversized, hand-me-down, uniforms, small and scrawny with little to no muscle. Sokka tried to convince himself that a rigging crew composed entirely of barely-teenage boys was a good thing. He failed miserably. Thinking positively had always been more Katara's thing, anyway. It was time to get cynical.

"Right. Now, can any of you tell me what I should be disappointed about today?" He continued to pace in front of the line of nervous sailors standing at attention, looking each of them in the eye as he moved down the line. One of the braver boys stepped forward, coughing softly in an effort to gain the First Mate's attention. Sokka turned to face him. "You, boy, break it down for me. What did you lot screw up today, hm?"

Another cough. Sokka was starting to think the boy might actually be sick. "Well, sir, it took us way longer than it should have to get back on track after the, erm... incident this morning. Perhaps we could have... done... better?"

Sokka scoffed, moving to stand straight in front of the boy, who, now that he was looking closely at him, did seem a little flushed**.** "Perhaps? No, you definitely could have done better. Which is why," he said, addressing the entire crew now, "you will be spending the rest of the day making sure the deck of this ship is clean enough to eat off of! Am I understood?"

The response was a unanimous "Yes sir!" But as the crew filed out of the map room, he stopped the boy who had spoken up; the one who had been coughing.

"Not you. You go see Gran-Gran. I don't know what you've got, but I sure as hell know I don't want anyone else catching it." The boy nodded, and ran off to find the ship's chief elder and primary healer.

Let it never be said that Sokka didn't run a tight ship. People usually looked at him and immediately thought him nothing but an idiot. And yes, he could be a little goofy at times- okay, more than a little goofy most of the time- but he was, contrary to popular belief, quite intelligent and, when the situation arose, could be quite serious when he wanted to be. That is why he did not belong here, on _The Serenity_. He did not belong here, babysitting children. He belonged on a real vessel, stealing and pillaging with the best of them, selling his inventions on the black market, working his way through the ranks until he was given his own ship to captain.

Really, it wasn't fair. Most boys- hell, everyone but him- got a real placement by sixteen. And yet here he was, eighteen years old and still stuck on _The Serenity_. And to top it all off, he was the Southern Chief's son. You'd think that would give him an edge over the other boys, but no. Sokka was going to be stuck on this ship forever, he just knew it. That train of thought made him want to hit his head against the wall. So he did.

_The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything_

Two hours later, someone knocked on the door of the map room. That someone was Katara, who had only knocked as a courtesy and proceeded to enter the room before she was officially allowed to come in. Sokka and Bato looked up from the maps they were glancing over. They were greeted with the sight of a very angry waterbender, standing in front of the Captain's desk with her arms crossed. "I'm sorry, who is the Navigator of this ship?"

Sokka grinned awkwardly. "Er... you are?"

"Exactly. So why, pray-tell, was I not informed that we were changing course so very abruptly?" She leveled a slight glare at her brother.

"Because you were washing dishes," Sokka stood tall in a weak assertion of superiority.

"On what planet is that a viable excuse?" A thin stream of water found its way to her hands from the open porthole.

"The planet Gran-Gran lives on." Katara opened her mouth to retaliate, but paused. Their grandmother did take chores very seriously.

She sighed and bent the water back to the sea. "Fine. But you still could have mentioned it to me. I had to find out from a member of the crew! Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is for a navigator not to know where her own ship is going?"

"...you were washing dishes." He retorted.

"Argh! Sokka, I swear by the spirits I will-" She found a sinister stance.

"ENOUGH!" Bato slammed his hands down on his desk. He glared at the siblings who were now standing nervously at attention in front of him. "Sokka, I told you to inform your sister, did I not?" Sokka nodded. "So why didn't you"

"Um...dishes?"

"That is no excuse. And to put your mind at ease, Katara, we changed course because one of our boys spotted Fire Nation Vessels in our path. Does that answer your question?"

Katara nodded. The Fire Nation Navy was powerful and ruthless, taking no prisoners and doing everything they knew they could get away with, which was quite a lot. And with the sheer number of women on _The Serenity_... she didn't even want to think about it.

"Yes captain. Although..."

"Yes Katara?"

"My maps show that there just so happens to be a very large iceberg in the path of our current course based on the ocean currents this time of year."

Bato sighed. There always had to be some sort of problem. "Is that what this dot is?"

"Yes Captain."

"Sokka, with our current speed, when will we reach the iceberg?"

Sokka stood up a little straighter. "Sometime around four in the morning, Captain."

Bato turned to Katara. "Do you think you could bend it out of the way?"

She didn't have much of a choice it appeared, "I could certainly try, Captain."

"Well, that settles it. You two will have the First and Middle watch tonight, and when we get to the iceberg, Katara will bend it out of the way. Understood?"

Sokka and Katara answered with a simultaneous "Yes, Captain!"

"Good. Now, go see how that sick crewman is doing. The last thing I want after the day I've been having is an epidemic."

_The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything_

It was close to dusk now, and the last of the dinner dishes were being cleared away. Sokka and Katara leaned against the railing, observing the clean up. Sokka leaned his head back and groaned.

"First watch _and_ Middle watch! I mean, what in the name of all that is good in this world are we supposed to do for the next eight hours!" He flopped forward hopelessly with his head in his hands.

Katara promptly smacked her brother upside the head. "Quit your whining. It probably won't even feel like that long."

"Oh yes it will, with our luck as of late. Trust me, sister dear, absolutely NOTHING of interest could possibly happen during those watches in the middle of the night."

Years later, Sokka would remember saying this. He would also remember how very, very wrong he was. Because, you see, interesting things did happen that night. Very, very interesting things.

* * *

><p>AN: On a ship, the 24 hour day is split into 8 watches of four hours each.

First: 8 pm to 12am  
>Middle: 12am to 4am<br>Morning: 4am to 8am  
>Forenoon: 8am to 12pm<br>Afternoon: 12pm to 4pm  
>1st Dog Watch: 4pm to 6pm<br>2nd Dog Watch: 6pm to 8pm

And then it starts all over! The 1st and 2nd Dog Watches are so the crew may eat dinner. Every half hour is marked by the ringing of a bell. At the end of the 4th hour 8 bells would be rung.

And yes, our line break is indeed the title of a song, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything by Reliant K.


	2. The Ancient Mariner

"I spy with my little eye, something that begins with-"

"Is it water?"

"...maybe."

"Sokka, it's been water the past twelve times. Please try to be less predictable, or I will be forced to kill myself out of boredom."

"Fine then. I spy with my little eye something beginning with S. Ha! Who's predictable now?"

"You are. Sea is the same thing as water. Now, can I use your sword to put myself out of my misery, or should I just strangle myself with my whip?"

"Look, Katara, I don't think you quite understand the way this works. You see, I'm supposed to be the cynical one. You're little miss optimism. Spirits, girl, get with the program already."

"...Sokka, I've decided that instead of killing myself, I'm going to kill you"

"Fantastic."

"You brought this on yourself."

"Spirits you're cranky when you lose sleep."

"Meanwhile, your already meager intelligence continues to diminish under the influence of sleep deprivation."

"...Stop using big words. Big words are confusing."

"Your scintillating intellect and rapier wit never cease to amuse me."

"Okay, that iceberg better come soon, or I'm going to seriously lose it."

**_The Ancient Mariner_**

To Sokka's relief, the iceberg did come into view shortly after that, its tip emerging over the horizon like a frozen sunrise.

Sleep deprivation always seemed to bring out his poetic side.

The time, as Sokka had predicted, was four in the morning, signaled by a bell and relief for the watch. But their work wasn't over yet. Katara readied a dinghy and she and her brother got in. Sokka took the oars, due to the fact that Katara needed to save energy to bend the iceberg. After what seemed like forever to their exhausted minds, Sokka and Katara reached the iceberg. Katara stood up in the boat, effortlessly maintaining her balance even as the boat shifted on the rocky waves and lurched due to the redistribution of weight. For a while, she just stood there, staring at it.

Maybe it was sleep deprivation, or maybe she had honestly gone crazy, or maybe her eyes weren't lying to her. Whatever the reason, Katara was sure she saw a ship in the iceberg. It was an old ship, with a carved figurehead and figures engraved on the hull, all unrecognizable due to the thick layer of ice covering them. The sails were larger than a typical Water Nation or Earth Kingdom vessel, and it wasn't made of metal like a Fire Nation frigate, but that meant that it would have to be-

"Katara! Earth to the waterbender! Spirits, woman, we need to finish this up and get you some sleep. You look like a siren got to you."

"Sokka, there's a ship in that iceberg." Her voice was blank and monotonic. Sokka's insinuation that she had fallen under the hypnotic spell of a siren's song was justified.

Sokka sighed. He was tired. She was tired. They both needed sleep, and he couldn't fault her for hallucinating. "Katara, you're imagining things."

"Am I?"

"Oh for spirits' sake Katara, it's just an iceberg."

She was fed up with the banter before it even really had a chance to start. Katara sent a narrow wave crashing down at what looked like the weakest point of the iceberg. It splintered into smaller chunks of ice. The sudden brilliance of light could be attributed to the near white ice and the angle of the sun. No matter where it came from, it was slightly blinding just the same.

"Does that look like 'just an iceberg' to you?" She demanded as the light dissipated.

The ship was ancient, but close to pristine. A good swabbing and it would look as good as new. This narrow ship with its oversized sails seemed as though it wouldn't stay upright for long. Those who built it meant for it to be used exclusively for sailing. But here it was after...from the layers of ice that had to build up to form that iceberg, at least several decades. That didn't explain why it hadn't thawed out in the warmer summer months. When it doubt, the best way to answer all questions is to explore. Katara unfurled her whip, looped it onto the nearest railing, and swung up over the edge.

"Katara! Get back here! We don't know whose ship that is. You could get in a lot of trouble—"

"If you're so worried Sokka, go stand watch," There was no way he was going to get her off this boat before she got some answers.

A grunt. A desperate creak. The sound of a splash. Sputtering, "Man overboard!"

"Oh really?" She raised her eyebrows, "looks a lot more like annoying brother overboard to me."

"Jokes later. Help me now."

"No...I'm going to make you swim back to our ship."

"Katara!"

She tipped Sokka onto the ship using a wave with an ungraceful thud. "Happy now?"

He righted himself and tried to wring the water out of his clothes. His sister rolled her eyes; pulled the water out of his clothes into a secondary whip. "I'm not wet anymore so, yes, I'm happy."

"You're unbelievable."

"You asked."

"Don't remind me."

"Have you ever heard of a ship called the Flying Bison?"

"Doesn't seem familiar...I don't think so."

"Well we're standing on the deck of it."

**_The Ancient Mariner_**

They decided to split up. Sokka was on the ship's deck, inspecting the rigging, while Katara searched the cabins above and below deck. In retrospect, it wasn't exactly splitting up. Sokka, after all, had no intent to search the ship. Katara was the one who decided to play explorer. She was fascinated by the ship's unique design; the way the hold was divided into separate rooms filled with bunk beds, as opposed to the giant open space and hammocks of a Water Nation ship, and the fact that there was not one, but two cabins above deck, staircases leading to raised balconies on top of the rooms.

So, as Sokka looked for a spot to nap, Katara wandered down frozen corridors, defrosting doors and breaking down barriers of ice. Eventually, she came upon a door, at the end of the corridor, frozen in a layer of ice at least a foot thick. Curiosity piqued, she broke through the ice - with some effort - and entered the room.

Like the door leading to it, the room was covered in layers of ice. But despite the kaleidoscope walls, Katara's eyes were immediately drawn to the center of the room, where a large bed was frozen in a dome of ice.

And there was someone frozen inside.

**_The Ancient Mariner_**

"SOKKA!"

With a large thump, The Serenity's First Mate fell off the makeshift hammock he had been sleeping in, roused by the screeching of his overdramatic sister. He got up, rubbed his head, and sighed.

What in Tui's name did that flighty broad want now? Wasn't it enough that he had followed her onto this La-forsaken ship? He was a good brother, damn it, he hadn't done anything to deserve this torturous denial of sleep that Katara seemed dead set on inflicting.

"SOKKA! GET DOWN HERE DAMN IT!"

And, with that lively sentiment from the bane of his existence, Sokka stood up and made his way towards his sister.

**_The Ancient Mariner_**

Grumbling and, as always, reluctant, Sokka entered the cabin his sister insisted on screaming at him from.

Then, he did a double take. "WHAT IN THE NAME OF TUI AND LA IS THAT!"

This prompted Katara to smack him. "Idiot. It's a person, obviously. Frozen, and for a very long time, from the looks of it." She returned to her place next to the frozen bed and continued to work away at the layers of ice surrounding it. She had to be careful if she wanted the person inside to live.

It was not-so-common knowledge that a person frozen with waterbending would live inside their icy prison, and Katara knew waterbending when she saw it. The tricky part, however, was defrosting the frozen individual. Do it too fast, and they would go into shock; but do it too slow, and they risked frostbite.

So, Katara carefully peeled away the ice, layer after layer, until the figure inside became clearly visible through the frozen water. Sokka, meanwhile, shuffled around the bed, shivering in the cold, remaining largely unhelpful. Until, at last, as the ice became so thin that he could see the bald teenager inside breathing as his breath fogged up the ice.

Sokka, ever the smooth operator, proceeded to scream like a little girl when he noticed this. Then, he began babbling almost incoherently to the boy in the ice; ignorant to the fact that said teenager was completely unresponsive.

At long last, the ice was scattered about the floor as snow, and Katara was attempting to perform a check-up on the now liberated teenager.

He was bald, Sokka noticed, and had bright blue arrow tattoos running up the back of his neck and over his head. He was frighteningly pale, and disastrously thin. As he hoisted the boy onto his back to carry him back to the dinghy, Sokka couldn't help but notice how unnaturally light he was.

**_The Ancient Mariner_**

When Aang opened his eyes, he saw blue. As his vision cleared, he realized that he was looking at a pair of bright blue eyes, fixed on the face of the prettiest girl he had ever seen (granted, he hadn't actually seen a girl before, but his addled mind assured him that if he had seen other girls, this one would definitely be prettier than all of them combined).

The second thing he noticed was how tired, cold, and, most of all, hungry he was. His stomach ached, and his limbs felt like they were made of lead. He tried to move, and found that he couldn't.

...What had happened to him?

The blue eyes moved away, and he could hear the girl they belonged to calling for someone. The next thing he knew, he was being propped into a sitting position and force fed some kind of edible mush by an aged Water Tribe woman.

Then, bitter medicine.

Then, darkness.

**_The Ancient Mariner_**

The months passed in a blur for Katara. For the most part, life had gone on as normal, with the exception of the strange boy in the sickbay and the strange ship being towed behind them.

And then he woke up. And for once, he was lucid.

He said his name was Aang. He said the ship was his. He seemed oddly disoriented, and Katara had to wonder just how long he had been in that iceberg.

To Aang, it seemed not even a day had passed. When she tried to explain the situation, to ask the proper questioned to figure out exactly what had happened, he simply replied with a loud shout of "I was FROZEN today!"

Eventually, she calmed him down, explaining how she had found him and released him from his icy prison, how Gran Gran had nursed him back to health. She was shocked to realize that he might have been in that iceberg for longer than she expected, as he didn't even know about the war with the Fire Nation.

Eventually, she led him onto the deck of The Serenity to face the world.

Or at the very least the rest of the people on board the ship.

**_The Ancient Mariner_**

And there you have it, folks. Chapter two, in all it's glory. Readers familliar with a certain Critic should recogniza a certain joke. Certain people made an effort to fit that in the minute they realized it was actually relevnt.

Once again, we own nothing, reviews make us happy, you know the drill.


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